


Delusionally

by greenleafin



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Death, Dreaming, Heavy Angst, M/M, Nightmares, Non-canon Character Death, Past Relationship(s), Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-05
Updated: 2016-12-05
Packaged: 2018-09-06 14:24:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8756038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenleafin/pseuds/greenleafin
Summary: The Reaper does something that leaves him shaken to the core





	

Reaper had to jump through a lot of hoops to make this meeting happen.

For weeks he had staked outside of the place the soldier was staying in, knowing just how many security measures were inside the place. The last time Reaper had tried to break in, even though he had simply made himself into smoke, the second he’d remateralized as a man, an alarm was set off. The reaper had immediately wraithed himself out of the small building before the man occupying it could find him there. However the hell it had happened, Reaper would make sure it didn't again.

Which led them to here. The soldier rarely left his safehouse, and when he did he always had an old Overwatch-owned pulse rifle with him. Reaper could perhaps surprise him and take him out, but the man had proven his skills more than enough times for reaper to know getting the jump on him simply wouldn't happen. So he waited. Waited until the one day the soldier got a little too comfortable. Waited until there was nothing in the man's hands at all. That was when he made his move. 

He silently formed himself into the same black fog that he was so used to becoming at this point. He followed the man for a brief moment before reaching out one fully composed hand, and threw him down. In the brief moment of shock, Reaper made his form that of a man once again, and kicked the man in the stomach hard. 

The other was sent to his back, and Reaper pressed a boot to the man's throat. 

_ Some fucking soldier.  _

There was a struggle, sure. The man tried desperately to wiggle his neck out from under the heavy foot. He clutched desperately for the handgun that was strapped to his thigh, but Reaper  was expecting that. He stomped on the soldier's hand and relished the sharp bark of pain. There might be a couple of broken fingers if he was lucky. The soldier's hand would be completely out of commission if the reaper was  _ really  _ lucky. 

Truth be told, he could absolutely take the soldier out with his guns. Quite easily in fact. Or if he was feeling a little original he could rip out the man's throat with his talons. 

Reaper dropped down to one knee and placed one taloned hand on the other man's throat, squeezing tightly. With the other hand he grabbed the handgun that the man was going for, pulled it out of its holster and threw it as far as he could. He knew that the man had no other weapon except for a knife tucked into his boot, but it was on the side of his injured fist. Reaper wrapped his other hand around the man's throat. The man's face was mostly obscured by his visor , but Reaper could see his eyes just enough to know that they were panicked. 

See, he didn't have a taste for blood tonight. What he wanted was to watch the life fade from the soldier's eyes as he squeezed it out of him.

The soldier had to be given credit, though. He didn't just grab for the appendages constricting his airway. No, instead he clawed at the pale mask that the reaper had on. He tried to plunge his fingers into the eye holes. He even tried punching every available area he could on the other man. 

All of which was to no avail. For his efforts, Reaper picked up his head and slammed it onto the ground. Not hard enough to kill or knock him out, but enough to stun him. Even still, the soldier tried to wrap his own hands around the assassin's throat. Reaper once again slammed his head against the concrete. 

With one last feeble shove at the reaper's chest, the soldier's hands fell to his sides. Though Reaper couldn't see it, the man was making  _ O _ -shapes with his mouth, trying furiously to suck in any air that he could. It was a losing battle, however. His body twitched once more before it stopped moving completely. His entire being sagged, and the reaper held the pressure against the man's throat for another minute, another two minutes, another five, shaking him violently just to make absolutely fucking  _ sure  _ that the bastard was dead. Through the red visor Reaper could see that the eyes he so needed to see were open, cold, and unmoving. 

That wouldn't do. Reaper needed to see the soldier's face, to put a mental image to the man he had been chasing for months trying to murder. And yet, he was almost hesitant to. Something told him that he wouldn't like his answer. But the need and curiosity overwhelmed him until he reached down and plucked the visor off the corpse's face. 

The man staring back up at him, so cold and unblinking, was the man that Reaper had been in love with for most of his life. 

He snarled, bolting upright, and tripped over the man's—Jack's—leg. He fell to the ground, and could only gape at the sight before him. While twisted and old himself, the soldier was still youthful. He still looked to be in his mid-twenties. The blonde hair that Reaper—that  _ Gabriel _ —had spent hours upon hours tugging, stroking, smelling was ruffled, and some stuck to the sweat on the man's forehead. His mouth was still wide open, and the reaper almost expected him to smile and sit upright, telling him  that it had been a joke. That he was alive, that he was okay. 

There was no more rational thought in the reaper's mind. He scrambled to his knees and knelt over Jack's body, whispering his  name quietly. He lifted Jack’s  torso, cupping one of his pale cheeks with his hand. The body slumped, almost like he was still trying in vain to get away from his attacker. 

The reaper screamed then, a long and hideous thing that would have terrified anyone who was within hearing range. He screamed, and he screamed, and he screamed. 

Jack was dead, and he was all to blame.

 

\----------------

 

The reaper bolted upright in his bed, chest heaving wildly, eyes searching around the room he was in. As always, it was barren besides a few pieces of metallic furniture. The sheets at Talon Headquarters would probably be made out of metal too if that were at all possible. 

But since it wasn't, Reaper grabbed the blankets in front of them and fisted them in his hands, bringing the fabric to his mouth to muffle his shouts of terror. He searched his memory for any validity to the dream, finding that the nightmare was just that. He took a few more shuddering breaths and was almost shocked to discover that his cheeks had become damp. Whether he had been crying while he slept or not he didn’t know, but what he did know was that the feeling in his stomach was the worst he had ever felt in his life. With wobbly legs he made his way to the trash can and dry-heaved over it for several minutes. 

Reaper had known for some time now that the man called Soldier:76 was Jack, though it was a secret he kept solely to himself.  Before he had discovered the truth, the rage he had felt towards the man was legendary. Every night he had dreamt of exacting his revenge in the most brutal and awful way. 

After Soldier: 76 had become Jack Morrison, the reaper hadn't had a single one of these dreams. The intensity of the nightmare terrified him to the very core. 

There was no one for the Talon agent to turn to for comfort.  He so rarely slept or dreamt, but when he did there were always terrible visions behind his eyelids. There was no saving him from this deeply loathed curse that left him half man, half monster. So instead, he curled his knees up to his chest and sobbed until eventually he was claimed by a blessedly dreamless unconsciousness. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> hOOOOOO gosh okay so i thought of this idea a while ago and had the perfect idea of how to write it right when i wanted to take a nap. worth the missed sleep though haha. 
> 
> ANYWAY! sorry both boiling point and moi poldakeafh have taken sososo long! this semster has absolutely kicked my ass harder than i ever thought it would. but the next chapter of BP is sooo close to being finished, and hopefully i can write more over christmas break! 
> 
> as always you can find me on [tumblr](http://whillowed.tumblr.com/) for questions, comments, concerns, or just to see the stuff i reblog! i'm also opening up my twitter to the public [here!!](https://twitter.com/maxalackin) iridian and i have a reaper76 playlist on spotify, and whereas its long, its sooo good. so you can find that [here!](https://open.spotify.com/user/22ohf35fkcwkxrtd7vygohata/playlist/3cLNB4KHtJBdPUhe5gbEPC)
> 
> comments, kudos, shares and more are always so greatly appreciated and thank you guys so much for being patient with me.


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